Welcome to one of the most predictable themes this year—and at the same time, our very last theme of the year: Winter. I hope you’re all bundled up, with the hot beverage of your choice by your side, ready to march through the virtual snow. Or you could just jump into your favorite holiday sweater and start up a colorful Christmas game, getting into the spirit (and taking a break from real life Christmas stress). Whichever you choose, be sure to keep us updated on your progress. And if you’re really festive, feel free to share a picture of your decorations with us, virtual or otherwise :)

Games include obvious Christmas-themed games as well as those with a focus on winter. Not included are games that simply have seasons (e.g. where Easter and Halloween get the same attention as Christmas), as well as games set in perpetual winter climates (like skiing games), unless there is a special Christmas/winter level. For games where winter is not the main theme, please provide a screenshot of the winter/Christmas part to have your points count. Points will work just like last month (or even better), simply mark your games as beaten/completed and the list will do the rest. You can find this month’s list of games right here. You can see your current score here (updated every 12 hours).

Do I have to participate in this month’s theme?
No, as with every theme, these are merely suggestions for anyone who is unsure about what to play next. If you already have a battle plan for your backlog and/or don’t like this month’s theme, you’re free to ignore it.

What happens if I don’t participate in the monthly theme?
Absolutely nothing.

What happens if I play all the games from the theme list this month?
Still nothing.

I don’t own any of the games from the game list, how can I still participate?
The game list is most likely incomplete. If you own or know of any other games that might fit this month’s theme, feel free to suggest them under the corresponding post.

I already played all the games I own from the theme list, should I play something again to participate?
If it was an awesome game and you’d like to replay it, sure, go ahead. Only replaying it for the theme won’t help you with your backlog though, so if that would be your only reason you should probably think about trying something else instead. (Although, if you have absolutely nothing else to play, you can still do that, I guess …)

I want to make some Christmas giveaways for the group, where do I post them?
If you have some keys lying around and would like to spread some holiday cheer with them, go ahead and make invite-only giveaways and post the links in your comments or posts on here. But if you happen to have some money to spare, maybe consider giving it to an actual charity rather than spending it on a group for people with too many games. You can find out more about various charities during the project for awesome or by browsing Humble’s charity search, for example.

Sorry for complaining, but after a few months I think I should mention instead of just being grumpy about it :D
Could you please make the link to the games’ list more noticeable? It’s just a one-word link at the end of the 4th row of the second paragraph, not even at it’s end. Like above or below the gif, as a bigger, button-like text instead of just being in-text.
Another one would be similarly simple - at the game list you wrote “Post your suggestions for other games fitting this month’s theme as a reply here” but only the title of the theme is there, for the in-depth description of it is in this post’s almost entire second paragraph. Maybe it’s just my pet peeve, but don’t turn this into the Steamgift’s FAQ + Guidelines separation, where I have to check the description again while browsing the game list on the other post while trying to figure out what games are missing. ( Just copy-paste the description of the title there, please :) )

I’ll get around to that over the weekend (I hope), I’m not great with the coding stuff, it’ll take a bit extra time, and was rather busy this week as well as last month, sorry if the posts aren’t that great honestly, I’m glad I managed to write more than 2 sentences there

Quick question, what if I play the DLC for Arkham Origins (which is actually especially winter/snow themed) if I had already beaten the game (but not the dlc so i’ll get new cheevos) and marked it as such on BLAEO. Will it still count towards the monthly theme score?

Did you put up screenshots for it? If there are no public screenshots for the game in your Steam profile, the list won’t give you any points on games without achievements. And it seems you’re not the only one with a missing entry altogether, so there may be some bug or something

Sorry, it’s me again :c
Seems I’ve got the same issue with Costume Quest.
Or, well, it still shows as 2 games beaten, which I’m 99,9% sure are the puzzle agent games.

New hypothesis: For some reason the spreadsheet hates me/the games I’m playing or is to puzzled by the beaten puzzle agents? :o
(So for clarity: As of now it seems it’s missing my Dust completion and Costume Quest 100%)